#RPGaDAY2021 Day 3 Tactic

Interesting one today. The alternate words are just as appealing to me as the main one.

Day 3 Tactic

I am currently in the different stages of a few very interesting and fun projects.  A couple I hope to get you all soon and others I hope their respective publishers get to you.

Presently I am also rereading some texts from my grad-school days and one, in particular, is about course design.  Now while books are course do not serve the same purposes they do have some similar design ideals.  It should be noted in my day of writing course curriculum I run into peers and colleagues who also are professional game designers. At one point I worked with several fellow designers that were also game designers (or had been) for WotC, White Wolf, and Mayfair.  The skills are similar.   But I digress.

The tactics I use to design a course or even design a bit of game work are also similar.

Whenever I have an idea for something. I usually start with what I call a vision document or a notes document. This lays out some ideas and key elements I want for the book/project. Let's take an example for a project I recently opted to put aside for now.  The project on my working projects drive was called "Demon City Tokyo: 2074" and it was going to be an anime-action "Night World" for Night Shift.  The idea came to me last October and grew out of a few other ideas I had "on paper" at the time.  It was going to be expanded on from these core ideas.  So I took that all and placed it in my vision document with some broad ideas; New type of super-collider, Tokyo of the future, some ideas on mixing a lot a Japanese and English for words.  I also linked in a bunch of maps, pages on the internet.  Help pages to refresh my Japanese after not speaking any in nearly 30 years (I can still count though!) and more.

My next phase or tactic in this process is to create the "thick outline."  This is exactly like outlining, save that I am allowed to include paragraphs and other details.  This allows me to start seeing the material in order and allows me to move material around a little easier.  I find doing the vision doc first gives me free-thinking room and then the thick outline focuses these ideas into a form I like.

Up next is detailed writing.  This is where I am on the Basic Bestiary series and where Demon City died.  Not because I did not have the details, but because Dyskami Publishing was coming out with their own Demon City that was WAY too close to mine.  NOW please be aware I am not suggesting anything here other than we both had a common idea.  Theirs is in Kickstarter now and it is likely to be very good.  I felt the world did not need TWO Demon Cities.  Plus as I was working on my detailed thick outline my lack of knowledge of Tokyo was becoming more and more obvious. At one point I even moved the whole thing to my more familiar Chicago, but it didn't have quite the same feel.

Basic Bestiary on the other hand moved forward to the detailed writing stages.   Here my tactic has been to pull any and all material I already had and use it here.  Demon City Tokyo lives on in Basic Bestiary III since a lot of the demons I researched for it are still fantastic demons.  While I write a ton of material here, not all it sees the light of publication or blog posts, and some not in the way they were originally envisioned. 

After that comes playtesting, editing, revisions, layout...but those are all tales for another post I think.

#RPGaDAY2021 Day 2 Map

One of the nice things about #RPGaDAY for 2021 is we also get a set of alternate words we can use.  Today is Day #2 and that is Map, but the other words are "Senses," "Plan," and "Voice."   But I am going to go with Map.

Day 2 Map

I adore maps. I knew very few role-players that are not fans of maps.

I talked about this in the past. A lot.

• Lost lands of Middle Earth & Doggerland
• Doggerland as Middle Earth
• The Original Known World
• Victorian London
• Mystara / Urt / The Known World
• Ancient Earth
• Mystoerth!

Speaking of Mysoerth, here is a new color map that fellow Mystoerth fan Matthew Fenn had made.

 

It is still a really fun map. If you look I have elements of not just Mystara and Oerth, but a little bit of Al-Qadim and even Gary's Necropolis.  Let's me have all my cake and eat it too.    A couple of things I would love to work into this map are Hyperborea (I already have a Boria) and maybe even a lost continent.  I might need to make my world a bit bigger to fit it all in though.  I have been playing with the idea that it is Ansalon there in the far south of the Far End Ocean.   It would mean redoing large sections of Krynn to fit my world and it might not really even be possible.  But then again my Zakhara does not look anything like the Zakhara from the Forgotten Realms.

I am still using Blackmoor as a common point of both worlds. I am also still wanting to make Hyperborea the land beyond the Black Ice.   I am guessing it is about the size of Antarctica.

Not sure if I can cram everything in there.

Another map that I have been having some fun with is this Flat Earth map known as "The World Beyond the Ice Wall."

I have no idea who made it but I get the sinking feeling that Flat Earthers actually take this one seriously.  I did find out who made it. It was made for a fictional sort of world, but it seems the Flat Earthers have adopted it as truth. 

It does however reflect how I would do Hyperborea.  A land beyond a wall of ice. 

#RPGaDAY2021 Day 1 Scenario

It is August and that means time for another #RPGaDAY from David Chapman and Autocratik. I look forward to this every year. Always some great writing prompts and I enjoy seeing what others come up with.

Day 1 Scenario

I had something planned for this, but I started writing it, and explaining it all was taking way too long. Even then I wasn't getting to my point so I scrapped it.

One question I get asked every so often is why do I like to use published Scenarios, aka Modules.

Simple. Sometimes I like to use something where a little bit of the heavy lifting (map, NPCs, monsters) has already been done. But that is only the lazy reason.  The reason I am doing it for campaigns like Come Endless Darkness and The Second Campaign is to give my players the full D&D Experience. For something like War of the Witch Queens it is more can I take everyone else's witch-based adventures and fit them to a campaign arc of my needs.

Mind you I am not opposed to my own scenarios or adventures. I did The Dragon and the Phoenix and The Season of the Witch campaigns for my Buffy games. 

I enjoy reading other scenarios and I enjoy coming up with them. 

Here's to a great #RPGaDAY2021 month!

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 31 Experience

And here we are at the end of another #RPGaDAY for August.   What new Expeiences has this given me?

From the start, this month has been about my reflection of a Summer with the BECMI rules and Basic-era rules in general.  I spent a lot of time here thinking about what these rules do that is different than what I have been used too over the last few years (read: Modern D&D) and what I was used too back in the 80s (read: Advanced D&D).

My lens for this #RPGaDAY was these experiences. Because of that reading what others had posted gave me a very different viewpoint.  It was not 2-3 blog posts and 5-7 tweets that were all identical and everyone talking about the same thing.  This was nice.  While I was not as responsive as I would have liked to have been to others on this, reading them all was fun.

Since I also spent a lot of time talking about my BECMI/BX campaign, War of the Witch Queens, maybe I'll use that map as a simple dungeon crawl.  Maybe using ideas from my various posts here and when those don't work, well, I am sure I'll think of something. 

Hopefully, next year when this starts I'll be at Gen con again with my kids. That would be really great.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 30 Portal

 There are all sorts of portals to be found in RPGs and D&D in particular, but one was the most important to me.

In these 16 pages, I got a glimpse of something more.  More worlds than I knew existed out there and they could be mine...all I needed was more paper-route money.

Here I first learned the differences between D&D and AD&D, though it would be a longer before I really knew.  Other games I have heard about but had not seen. Games like Dungeon! and Vampyre.   I learned of Gen Con and I wanted one of those T-Shirts.

I am a little sad we don't have these anymore, but there are far too many products these days to make it practical. 

I see Archive.org has a copy archived if you want to take a look.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 29 Ride

Lost our Internet yesterday do to a neighborhood outage.

When it came back on finally I had day job stuff to finish.  So I am "phoning it in" today with my Ride post.  Though I am still doing the topic I wanted.

Today's post is "Why Do Witches Ride Brooms?"

Here a couple of videos to answer that question.

First up one that talks about in terms of the practice of witches and witchcraft.

Second, we have Greg Owens from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Utah, College of Science.

Maybe one day I'll work up an in-game reason for witches and brooms. 

Here is a bit of an episode of Charmed to help explain why the Warren Witches are depicted on brooms.  It is a little silly, but fun.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 28 Close

This is about the time of year that I close out Summer projects and inventory my Fall ones to see where I am at.  

But this summer was a strange one really.  The whole Covid-19 thing changed a LOT of plans, one in particular was available free time to get other projects done. The day job was just too involved.

So I am still closing out my Summer though and looking ahead to Fall and beyond plans.  Here is what is going on for me and The Other Side.

Right now I am archiving old projects, both personal and work, I like to have a nice cleaned out work space on my computers.  This also gives me the opportunity to see what I have been working on and what still needs to be done. 

I still have a little bit more I want to do for BECMI month Summer, including a deep dive into the Shadow Elves like I mentioned on Day 9.  That though is in a couple more weeks. 

The really GREAT thing about this #RPGaDAY2020 posting is it has me thinking about all my stacks of research material and upcoming projects.

War of the Witch Queens Campaign

The War of the Witch Queens has been on my mind a lot since I want to run it under the B/X or BECMI rules.  I just have not figured out all the points yet.  I pointed out on Day 20 that Kelek is likely to be my bad guy.  And I think that still works.  In fact if the campaign only goes to level 14 (B/X, OSE) then that will be my guy.  BUT What if Kelek sets thing into motion he didn't predict and it quickly got out of hand?  The Witches, held in check by the Witch Queens are now doing some real damage?  What then? Well. In that case we continue on to level 36!  Who knows, I might even start it with the classic "You meet in an Inn".

Super Dungeon Explorer Adventure Team Go, Go, GO!

This is a bit of a goof, but it has gotten a lot of attention.  I secured an artist this week for the first release of this.  It will be for 5e and likely 180° away from anything Old-School.

Basic Bestiary and High Witchcraft

The first draft of Basic Bestiary is done, working on the beta draft now. I also put together my spreadsheet to track art development. Sadly I have not actually secured any new artists for this one.  So that might be a delay. 

The High Witchcraft book is no where near ready.  I was going over my notes and I am not even sure I have anything that can be considered a draft at this point. Just about a dozen or so files of notes that need to be collated, edited and then made into something. Additionally I have files of materials that did not make the cut for some of the other books; usually due to space or because the idea was not as complete as I would have liked.  If this is really going to be my "last witch book" then it behooves me to either find a home for those orphans here or on my blog.  One such orphan was the Goblin Forest of Haven.

I really want the High Witchcraft book to be really special. I want it to feature some of the ideas I have been playing with for years and to be my Coda for this series. 

I have a couple of other projects on the burners, but nothing I can share just yet.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 27 Favor

Today is my younger Brother's Birthday.  I also always associate this day as the real first day of the Fall Term.  I have been in academia for so long (all my life really) that my calendar still pivots on the Fall term.

So my youngest son started his senior year last week. My older son can't go back to culinary school just yet. My Fall term started on Monday.   Time to clear up old summer projects and move into new Fall ones.

And for this, I am asking for a Favor.

I want to get a few more of my books out into the hands of reviewers.  

So if you are interested in reviewing one of my witch books or even (or especially) Night Shift, drop me a note. You can post below, but send me an email so you can include all your contact details and where you plan on leaving your review.

Thanks! 

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 26 Strange

Again a couple ways to go.  

I could comment on these strange days, but I have other social media outlets for that.

I am going to comment on the #RPGaDAY2020 list itself in that these are a lot of strange words.  

Ok, I get it, Dave has been doing this a long time and maybe he is running out of words to use. but knowing and the work he has done in the past I highly doubt he is lacking in ideas. So I'll just put this here as my commentary and that's it.

Ok. Strange. Let's get to the meat of this.

Many of my contemporaries will point to Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tolkien, Moorcock, and Lovecraft as their main sources of inspiration to D&D.  While I share the Tolkien, Moorcock, and Lovecraft influences, I also add Clark Ashton Smith.

But those were not my only sources.

Dr. Strange and Tomb of Dracula

The 1970s were a strange time to be sure.  The 70s Occult Revival fueled my tastes in games in ways I never knew at the time and only saw in retrospect.  Case in point. Dr. Strange comics and Tomb of Dracula.  Both were favorites of mine but when Strange, along with Blade, would battle Dracula? Yeah, THAT was an adventure.  I wanted my games to have these epic world-changing battles that start small but then go on out to the cosmic scale.  Strange didn't just defeat Dracula. He destroyed all vampires.

I was already a huge horror fan at this point and Hammer Horror in particular. So these comics sent me searching more and more strange ideas for my games. I think by 1982 I had read every book of occultism in my local public library.  Creating a witch class was an inevitable conclusion at that point. 

When the Ravenloft module was released it found a no more welcome home than mine.

I have mentioned this in greater detail here.

Strange Stories, Amazing Facts

My copy

My parents were voracious readers. Books filled every corner of my home growing up and every room had at least one bookshelf, some like the living room had three. 

They, like many people of their generation, had a lot of Reader's Digest books. One, in particular, was Strange Stories, Amazing Facts.

This book should not by any stretch of the imagination be considered good literature or even good research. It is however good fun and a fun read. 

While the book is divided up into roughly chronological sections including one on the future, it was the past and the monsters of myth that always grabbed my attention.  Though flipping through it now that section on the end of the world would be fun to use.

For my birthday about 10 years ago my family found a copy and gave it to me.  Complete with original dust jacket (I am book snob and prefer my dust covers intact).

I have been asked in the past to assemble my own "Appendix N".  Maybe I'll do that one day.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 25 Lever

Archimedes, the polymath of classical antiquity, is quoted with "Give me a lever and firm place to stand and I will move the world."

A lever is one of the six simple machines described by Renaissance writers. The lever is usually the first, though I think the inclined plane or ramp may have historically been the first.  

How does this apply to my games? Well...it does in a couple of ways, but the underlying theme is "keep it simple."

Design

Like a lot of people, I have been working from home since March.  It has worked out well for me since I can work anywhere I have a solid internet connection.  My wife has been home as well and I will admit I have enjoyed being home with her and my kids quite a bit.  I often get to listen in on her meetings when I go upstairs (my office is in my basement next to the game room) to get coffee. She has been talking about Optimization Levers all week.  In her case it has to do with software development.  But it is something I think about a lot in my day job and in my own RPG design work.

One of the reasons I feel I will never fully be part of the Old-School movement (whatever the stripe) is that I prefer simple solutions over complicated ones.  Don't give me 10 different ways of doing something in a game when one will suffice. I don't need tables when a simple algorithm and a number will work just as well or even better.

This is one of the reasons I feel that modern D&D is superior, design-wise, to older D&D.  I don't need pages of attack matrices for different classes and monsters when 3.x BAB and AC as DC works so much better.  I don't need percentile dive for thieves skills and d6s for ranger skills when both can be done with a d20.

The more you can simplify the rules the more then fade into the background and people can just play.

This is the central design philosophy behind Cinematic Unisystem. Everything is d10 based. Successes are based on any adjusted roll over a 9.  Simple. 

But simple mechanics do mean the game as been "simplified" or "dumbed down." It means the esoterica has been removed.  For D&D and Unisystem the lever is the d20 and d10 respectively.

I see a lot of people online complaining that such and such game is "dumbed down" or "made simple," often accompanied by a confession of never actually have played the game in question. 

Don't confuse simple with simplistic. 

Tools of Design

Likewise, I like to keep my process of design simple.  I feel it puts me into the right headspace for design.  So my levers here are the basic sort.  Paper and pencil.

Don't get me wrong. I am a technophile.  My wife and I love to be on the cutting edge of technology. I can even remember a time in the early 90s where I was looking for 50Ω terminators for the in house network we had built when such things were not only not common, but there was no good place to buy all the parts we needed for the multiple types of computers we had at the time.  

I will still run stats to determine spell levels and figure out which levels are needed.  While I can, and do, run those on my computer, I taught stats for long enough to also do the calculations with a pencil. 

Research still involves me, some books, and a folded up sheet of paper that serves as a bookmark and a place to keep notes. 

Coffee and pencils. Still my most reliable tools.

I mean yes. I will still transcribe those notes onto my PC/Laptop/Phone with some more details. but it has worked well for me for years.

So my advice is to be like Archimedes.  No, I don't mean run through the streets of Syracuse naked yelling "Eureka!" But rather use the simple tools and find a good place to stand.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 24 Humor

I have always believed that humor is essential in most games.

Yes, it can be a serious game, but humor; sometimes even gallows humor, is needed.

Like anything, it can be overdone.  In high school during our AD&D games, we had to put a moratorium on stupid puns in our games.  It got so bad that it led to our DM creating the "Wandering Damage table" or just damage your character took from the universe reacting to your pun.  It, in of itself, was a humorous solution to the problem.

For Ghosts of Albion, I wrote a section on horror role-playing. I got into some detail that is appropriate for that game but I also included a section called "See A Little Light" (yes, I am a Bob Mould fan). The point was that constant horrors will wear your characters, and players, down. That every so often you need to lighten the mood.  Even the Ghosts of Albion web-episodes and books had a good mix of humor to them. I mean you can't have the ghost of Lord Byron and not have fun with that.

The topic of RPGs and humor is vast really. So there is no way I am going even cover 1% of it in a blog post.  But I figure I will cover one other thing.

I don't want to make it look like that all my games are Toon or Paranoia, I do like a serious game.  BUT just like too much humor is a bad thing, taking yourself too seriously is also bad.

A while back I was at a game at Gen Con. This was before my family started going with me and I was in a Mutants and Masterminds game. The GM was a real dick. There were a couple of younger kids in the game and like kids do, they joked and had fun, and the GM was just a real bastard to them.  Yes you can have a serious game, but don't be an asshole about it.  It was this dudes game, so I was not going to tell him how to run it, so I did the "dad thing" I just inserted myself between the kids and the GM.  I turned the three of us into this little mini-team of the eight sitting there so he didn't have to talk to them directly.  I don't think he knew how to deal with kids really.

So be like Bob Mould and see a little light.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 23 Edge

Again, lots of directions for "Edge" but I think I am going to go with "cutting edge" and talking about the latest cutting edge in dungeon exploring technology.

Right now the hottest thing for D&D 5 is the Combat Wheelchair. 

Sara Thompson is a D&D player and accessibility educator (and if you had any clue how much money my company spends on accessibility issues you would understand why such a person is vital today) has designed a "Combat Wheelchair" for D&D 5e.

You can get a copy of it here, Combat Wheelchair 2.0. 

It is actually kind of awesome, and I wonder why it was never dreamed up before.  I mean seriously how many D&D games can point to X-Men comics as a source of inspiration? Certainly someone, somewhere had D&D versions of the X-Men and Professor X included.

She released it on Twitter and very quickly it caught attention. Artist Claudio Pozas even provided some free art for it.   She even got a lot good press on this. 

• https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/dungeons-and-dragons-5e/news/dnd-5e-combat-wheelchair-rules
• https://nerdist.com/article/dungeons-and-dragons-combat-wheelchair/
• https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2020/08/dd-combat-wheelchair-makes-splash-with-wotc-staff-critical-roles-dm-but-not-all-agree.html
• https://www.cbr.com/dd-fan-created-combat-wheelchair-inclusivity/

Even miniature companies jumped on this.

https://strataminiatures.com/

AS you can imagine not everyone is seeing this as the good thing it is.  I am not going to reiterate their rather tedious arguments here; go look them up if you like.  I'll just say that in a game with magic, flying lizards, giants and all sorts of wonders how is this a bridge to far?  

Find out more about this on these sites:

• https://twitter.com/mustangsart
• https://twitter.com/HwithoutLimits
• https://www.twitch.tv/hwithoutlimits

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 22 Rare

I am what I would call a casual collector of old-RPGs.  I don't think I go crazy to find certain items, but there are some I am always on the lookout for.

I am particularly fond of anything printed in England for example.  I have mentioned before I am an anglophile and a huge fan of anything English/British/Celtic/Gaelic.  So I have made some effort to get some of the older D&D/AD&D books that were printed in England by Games Workshop.

All these books are softcover, which is kind of interesting.

On my list is a Holmes Basic box published by Games Workshop.

I don't have one of these and all the ones I have found are really expensive.

I am also not an autograph hound, but I have a couple items that I am proud of.

First, Deities & Demigods signed by Jim Ward and a couple of the artists. 

Need to get some more of these.  Erol Otus and Darlene are my goal.

And my only Gary Gygax signed item.

One last thing on my list is a carded set of Dragon Dice.  

I used to get these at B. Dalton's Bookseller in Springfield IL.  Had I know how much they go for now I would have bought a couple extra sets.

Yes I know. There are superior dice. And what I would pay for these I could several dozen sets of other dice. But what is the point of going to grad school for 14 years and living on popcorn and pineapple for a year if I can't spurge now?

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 21: Push

There is always one day in these month-long posting sessions that I have nothing.

Today is that day.  I mean I can come with stuff for "Push" don't get me wrong, just nothing I feel inclined to write about in a meaningful way.   I usually allow my self a pass on any given day. Today I am taking it.

So here is something "push" related.

I guess Garbage is from the same area as D&D, so there is that.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 20 Investigate

I have made some off-handed comments here, and on Facebook and other social media platforms, but nothin solid or concrete yet.  So now is that time. I am pulling together several loose ideas and a couple more developed ones into a single narrative.  

All summer long I have been fairly focused on some "Basic-era" games.  In particular OSE, BXRPG, and BECMI.  I knew I was going to get a game together using one or more of these rules.  I also have a big campaign I want to do, War of the Witch Queens, which I have been going back and forth on; should it be Basic-Era (BECMI in particular) or Castles & Crusades.

The premise is simple really, deceptively so.
While our intrepid adventurers are doing their normal adventuring thing they notice that there are an awful lot of powerful, but low level, witches causing troubles.  Making power grabs and largely being a problem.  The adventurers discover, but some means not fully developed yet, that the problem is the witch hierarchy is in shambles.  Someone has murdered the High Queen of Witches.

I said this bit before, but every 13 years the witches gather to choose a new High Queen of Witches. While all the Witch Queens, leaders of their respective traditions, have a say in truth it is the current High Queen that chooses the new High Queen.  This year the witches have gathered and the High Queen has been killed.  Every Witch Queen suspects the others and the entire power structure is in shambles. 

That is the goal.  The characters have to investigate the murder and find out who did it.

Simple, right?  Well...the trouble is that for the most part I don't know who did it. At least not yet.

Here are the details.

Who was murdered? The High Queen of Witches.
How was she killed? It looks like a mundane dagger. But that can't be it right??
Why was she killed? Unknow, it is suspected that one of the out-of-favor Queens did it.
Are we sure? No. Witches are not allowed to harm each other.  This taboo gets more powerful as the witch increases in level.  The powerful the witch, the less able she is to harm another witch.  I call this the Pact of Baba Yaga. She demanded that no witch harms another or SHE will come in and do the harming. 
Ok, why was she really killed? To destabilize the power base of the witches.  The Witch Queens keep the lower level witches in line.  They can't harm them directly...but you can be surprised what they can do.

So, this puts me on an investigation of my own.  Essentially I have to go through the mystery myself and see where it leads me. But this isn't just a murder mystery.  This is a power grab.  Someone wanted the High Witch Queen dead to destabilize the witch power structure on purpose. Who would want to do that?  The other Witch Queens?  No. Can't be one of them. They can't actually harm each other due to the Pact of Baba Yaga.  Plus, why would they want too? Without that High Queen the witches will start warring, start causing trouble and basically doing all the things that got them all sent to the gallows and the stake the first time around.  Plus any new High Queen is going to spend most of her 13 years ruling just cleaning up the mess of the last 13 months.  No.  This is someone outside the hierarchy looking to weaken the witches.

But who?

Enter Kelek the Cruel.

Kelek has the notable distinction of being the first AD&D Toy Line product I ever bought. I thought he would be great as an antagonist, but in the end, I never used him.  In my investigations of Skylla, I also ran into more details about Kelek.  I learned that like Skylla, Kelek was changed to evil by the Heartstone. He also was a friend to Ringlerun, the good wizard. Skylla had been Ringlerun's apprentice, but now she works with Kelek.  Kelek seems more than happy to use her to his own ends.

Then I discovered two details that really sold it for me.  

First. Kelek was in the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon, Episode "Valley of the Unicorns", where he unwillingly served Venger.  That is not the important bit.  The important bit is who wrote the episode.

Yes. Paul Dini. The same Paul Dini that invented Harley Quinn, wrote SO MUCH material about Zatanna and gave us the definitive Evil-Lyn episode of the Masters of the Universe, "The Witch and the Warrior."

I don't know about you, but for me, that is a pedigree.

Second, and this happened while doing my investigations of both Kelek and Skylla and BECMI related merchandise, I found that Kelek was featured a lot in the AD&D coloring books and in the D&D story books for kids.

In one, The Treasure of Time, Kelek is creeping on Charmay (the good magic-user, and subject of a crazy idea of mine) where he discovers a map to the "Treasure of Time".  Long story (ok it is not that long) short, he finds the treasure and becomes young again, but loses all his knowledge of magic. 

He is humiliated by Charmay who laughs at him while he cries.

The thought occurred to me. Here is a guy that obviously already has issues. Bullied by Venger, humiliated by Charmay, and wants nothing more than to be the Master of all Evil Magic according to his bio in the Shady Dragon Inn and has no problem destroying Skylla once he gets what he wants.

I have been watching a lot of the new Harley Quinn animated series lately where they have Doctor Psycho as a full-on misogynistic asshole.  Further strengthens that Paul Dini connection (I know. He has nothing to do with that show, but there would have never been that show had it not been for Dini) and make Kelek the same.  It's not a stretch really.  Plus it also allows me to play with current politics in my game.  Taking an old misogynistic white dude (and likely aging incel. he had to lure those unicorns in some way) and make him the bad guy in a situation were witches/women hold more power than he does and he wants. 

I have not decided though if Skylla is working with him on this.  Either he has promised her the High Witch Queen crown OR if he is manipulating her as well.

After his defeat at the hands of Charmay, a bitter Kelek had no choice but to go back to magic school and relearn everything.  Only this time instead of a bright young man who had a friend (Ringlerun) with him, he is a bitter old-man in a young man's body.  That also makes him extremely focused. He doesn't go for the types of fun that a young magic-school student might get into. Instead he is bitter, focuses 100% of time on his studies and plots of revenge.  In the process, he sees "enemies" everywhere.  Everyone is trying to stop him or mock him and he is SOOOO much smarter than these fools around him.  It is easy to think of someone like this in real life. He hates his fellow students because they are so stupid in his mind. He hates his teachers because in his mind he has already done far more than they have. Every day that they have to teach him something he already knew long ago, but can't quite remember, is a stinging reminder of his defeat.

Why is Kelek going after the witches? Well he hates women and his old friend and enemy Ringlerun died of natural causes, robbing Kelek of the chance to kill him. 

Sometimes I like to make villains that you can relate too. It's my Lex Luthor philosophy.  Lex never thinks he is the villain, he is the Hero, and that flying abomination is the villain. 

Kelek is just an asshole whose thoughts are so twisted in on themselves that he doesn't care if he is the villain or the hero, he is just going make everyone that laughed at him pay.  No one will stop him because he is so much smarter than everyone around him.

And those types of villains are really fun to defeat.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 19 Tower

Why do wizards have towers?

Thieves get to start guilds, fighters get strongholds and clerics get to establish churches.  Wizards get a tower.  Seems a little weak if you ask me.  But there are some good reasons.

The wizard in his* tower likely goes all the way back to Merlin if not before.  

I do say "his" in this case since the archetypical wizard in the tower was always depicted as male.  Witches get an even worse deal, relegated to just a hut or cabin.

So for a game steeped in medieval quasi-history and tropes, the fastnesses of the other classes make sense.  As does the wizard tower.

The tower represents a sense of isolationism and separation from the rest of humanity.  To reach the top takes work, takes effort. 
Much like becoming a wizard in the first place.

There are also academic associations. We call institutions of higher learning the "Ivory Tower" not just for their remoteness and inaccessibility to the hoi polloi, but also a reflection of the inhabitants' distance from the affairs of the world. 

The Tower (capital T) represents, in the physical, the "otherness" of the wizard.

It can also represent the hubris of the wizard as depicted in the Major Arcana of the Tarot.  I always thought the Tower here was allegorical, like the Tower of Babel from the Abrahamic religions. "You can be powerful, but not too powerful."

I am not a map-maker. But in my spare-time (hahahahahaha) I have been picking at a tower that I might feature in one of my games.  The top of the tower is for star-gazing and for magic that needs to be done under the sky.  The tower also extends down to a lower chamber for darker magics.  Maybe I'll make it part of my BECMI campaign I am planning.  I do have the ground floor all mapped.  There is a statue of a syncretized Ereshkigal-Hecate-Cardea guarding the doorways to the upper levels and lower levels.

Maybe I get my son to 3D print one for me.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 18 Meet

"You meet in an Inn..."

Or not.  Meeting in an inn or tavern has to be one of the biggest clichés in Fantasy Gaming.  I mean, yes it works, but it is certainly a bit of a lazy meeting anymore. But does that make it bad?

Lately, I have noticed, especially with on-line game streamers, that they take the cliché and are very tongue-in-cheek with it.  I also think it is something that has largely been replaced by what is now called "Session Zero."

I like Session Zero.  You get to meet all the characters as they are being rolled up and some backstory is given. Plus there are other house-keeping items that are covered such as what the game is about, any house rules, and what the limits are.

"Meet in an Inn" and "Session Zero" are not mutually exclusive, but they are both typical of the styles of games they usually start.  "Meet in an Inn" is more common with old-school games and "Session Zero" with newer games.  There is also one other factor they represent; expectations of character deaths.

"Meeting in an Inn" is often situated in a game where character death is a likely occurrence. Even though the archetype of this trope, the meeting of Strider in the Prancing Pony, resulted in all the participants surviving to the campaign's end.

"Session Zero" is usually associated with the understanding, either tacit or implicit, that the characters have a good chance of survival.  There is often the aforementioned back story. 

For my "Order of the Platinum Dragon" campaign, I did do the "you meet in an inn" scenario.  Again the purpose of that campaign was to give my kids a "classic D&D" experience and I was not going to rob them of that.

For my "War of the Witch Queens" I have not figured out yet how the characters will meet.  I know how they are going to get on the trail of the mystery, the murder of the Witch High Queen, but before that, I am still at a blank.  But that is ok. There will be a Session Zero, so maybe we can all figure it out then.   Although. I really have wanted an excuse to use The Shady Dragon Inn.

It would give me an excuse to use these two,

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 17 Comfort

Back in 1972, Dr. Alexander Comfort wrote a groundbreaking book, "The Joy of Sex".

Groundbreaking in the frank portrayal of the sexual act as something to celebrate and enjoy.  Also groundbreaking for its illustrations (and photographs at least in the 2008 version) and its place as part of the start of the sexual revolution.

I think what we need today is an equally revolutionary "Joy of D&D."

One might ask why we would need such a book. One could also ask why we need a Joy of Sex, but if nearly 30 years of studying (and three degrees in) psychology you would be surprised by how little people actually know about sex.  Sure they can "do it" and have been since, well forever, but there is still much that people don't know. 
People can ride a bicycle, but that does not mean they are ready for the Tour de France.

I am not talking about a book on how to play the game. We have those, the rulebooks from TSR/WotC.  Or even a manual on how to run the game.  I'll contend that the pinnacle of this is still the AD&D 1st Ed Dungeon Master's Guide.

No. In this case, I am talking about an easy to read book; a breezy sort of guide. Maybe even a collection of essays and personal stories mixed in with guidelines on not just how to play D&D (and I think D&D in particular) but also how to get the most enjoyment out of it.  A Gourmet Guide to D&D and Roleplaying as it were. 

And just like how Dr. Comfort's book broke free of the Puritanical notion that sex had to be done one way for one reason alone, this guide would break the notion that D&D has to be done way.  Sure it can be a serious game, but it can also be light, breezy, and fun. 

Both books serve the same purpose

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 16 Dramatic

How Dramatic do you like your games?

I suppose I do enjoy some drama. I like the game feel high stakes for the players (and characters) but I am more interested in Cinematic Style play anymore.  Even my horror games are a little more Cinematic than they are Gritty Dramatic. 

Just the other night my wife and I were talking Power Creep in games and TV shows and how to prevent it from being a series killer.  Shows like Grimm, or Buffy, tend only to last 6 or 7 seasons because you have to keep upping the ante on the power to increase the drama.  Fight a vampire Season 1, you need a demon Season 2, a God Season 3 and then...oops. Too far too fast.  Star Trek TNG had the same problem, once you introduce the Borg where is up? 

Shows like X-Files and Supernatural have to come up with ways to justify what is going on. In X-Files' case, I think the show fell apart under its own weight. Supernatural...they just keep doing their own thing and the audience is happy. In the case of X-Files, the drama got too much. In Supernatural, it didn't.

But in the case of Supernatural, the drama hasn't changed, it just gets reused. Certainly not the melodrama.  In Arrow, also mostly normal humans, the drama had to come from strained interpersonal relations that were supposedly solved in the previous seasons. Which is the same thing the next season. While it has worked, one can argue, for Supernatural, it didn't as much for Arrow. 

On the other end of the spectrum, you can have games like old-school D&D.

People will often claim that old-school D&D doesn't have, or shouldn't have drama. I say people are missing out.  I often prefer more cinematic play in my D&D as well, but there is still room for some drama.  Of course, D&D is not like a TV show. There is always something more powerful. And thus the Power Creep. We see as the levels go on and even as the editions go on.  I did my analysis a while back where I showed a 1st level D&D 4 character was as powerful as a 6th level BECMI character.  The monsters accordingly so as well.

Can you increase drama without power creep? Sure. But you have to be careful about it.

#RPGaDAY 2020: Day 15 Frame

I bought this commission from Claudio Pozas years ago.  I did not get it framed since I wanted to take to Gen Con to get it signed.

I got it signed, yeah! But I should have gotten it framed as well!

Now I am having a hell of a time finding a frame that fits it.   

I am loathed to trim it and equally loathed to take it to Hobby Lobby.  Although in their defense, they never gave me grief for the WitchCraft RPG prints I had framed.